Dongle Duplication/Cloning ?

[RJ California]

Cough, Cough !

How 'bout I emulate a dongle for under $100 ?

Is it LEGAL ?

Legal? I don't know. My guess would be no. I know that your intentions are honest but as an established sign business owner like yourself I'm glad that Flexi keeps it's software expensive and hard to pirate.

I would be nervous about moving my key from place to place too. Call your supplier that sold you Flexi and see if they have any deals on Design Stations -- a couple of 4x8's would probably pay for it.

 

[trakers]

I must be gay I guess, cause I'd like to stick this GD Flexi dongle right up the software engineers ***. Have had to make a 40 mile trip a lot more than I wish to admit to retrieve it so I could use the program I paid for.

When we pay for these high dollar programs they should be convenient to use, not strap us down with activation or a friggin 1980's style dongle.

 

[sarge]

years ago before these flash drives had the capacity as the ones we have now, i used a hot swapable hdd .. and i lashed a piece of wire to the hdd key and my software dongle .. cuz i would make the drive from my home in puyallup to my shop in monroe, those from my area will know that is a brutal drive .. and i had for got my my dongle all the time .. i got no where with the software company or sw who i bought the software from .. it is a problem i am sure all of have experienced .. we can only blame people in our industry for this .. cuz if we as an industry wasnt the problem .. who was? .. i will answer that .. bad people in our industry .. not placing blame on anyone .. just saying ..

 

[iSign]

...but we're not paying for programs, we're paying for licenses, with license agreements that we have to agree to. It is a hassle from time to time, but as RJ says, it's actually somewhat to our advantage that they make things a bit of a hassle, because regardless of the honest intentions among us in this thread, we all know that a loophole left open for abuse, WILL lead to abuse, and abuse will lead to higher priced software & lower priced signs from the competitors who circumvent the cost of entry to this trade.

Marc, the DMCA says it's not legal, as I understand it, based on the most recent amendment I am aware of.

The relevant part of the law can be read HERE in typically obtuse leagalize... or an easier few sections can be read HERE on a wikipedia page that covers the exceptions to the "circumvention" ruling, including the one that allowed me to buy a way around my casmate dongle, due to the fact of there being no legal no legal alternative commercially available.

 

[Replicator]

Marc, the DMCA says it's not legal

Doh'

 

[cOrKinSA]

Doh'

DMCA. Man it's like the mafia for the First Generation Garage geniuses. I think of this and I am always reminded of 2 movies. Antitrust & Paycheck.

 

[iSign]

I read a post a few years back, where someone found one of them Russian sites that didn't try to sell you dongle emulation software, or offer suspect downloads, but instead, they had found written instructions on how they could bypass the dongle on one of their programs. The dongle was broken, but they were still able to do this, so although I don't think it would be legal in this instance, I ain't a lawyer & I didn't even stay at a holiday Inn last night... so might be another angle to search for.

 

[GARY CULY]

i used this http://www.software-key.org/ once years ago for a 5.2 omega key .it was the big blue one used a 85 pin plug in puter.....
while were on "piracy "[for the 1000,000 time] i feel real stupid to have bought flexi,omega and adobe suite while the shops all around say"your an idiot we get our for free off the internet" as does i bet 50% of people on here ..i know i'm old and always buy this stuff cause i have to sleep peaceful each night ,but the whole world is making me feel pretty stupid nowdays. it wouldnt make me feel as bad buying software if the comapnies would actually go shut down all these shops with illegal software [and post it on boards like this so we could see],but ive never even heard of them trying to keep people honest ..guess they dont care so why should all of us? i just hate it when some kid gets stuff like that off the internet and i pay a lot of money for the same thing...no wonder there prices are cheaper

 

[GARY CULY]

oh ,if i remeber right it was just over 250.00 for the replica

 

[iSign]

Gary, some people suck, but don't feel bad that you aren't one of them. I've paid full price for CasMate, Flexi, Signlab, Omega, & Enroute... almost $20K in software over the years...
& I don't even sleep all that well ... but at least it ain't over software... hmm, now where's my coffee

 

[BobM]

How about a backup dongle for home/laptop use, no printing or cutting, just layout and design? And while you're at it, add a vibrate option. Wouldn't that make it a more valuable attachment to your dongle/dingle??????????????????/

 

[thmooch]

Instead of constantly moving the device you might consider using a product like logmein.com which will allow you to access the computer remotely from any computer that has internet access. You may have already considered this, but I thought I would throw it out there.

 

[SignBurst PCs]

How about attaching your dongle to your car keys (or something like this)?

This may work for some of the small shop owners.

 

[Replicator]

How about attaching your dongle to your car keys (or something like this)?

This may work for some of the small shop owners.

I already tried that 2-years and lost a dongle when it broke away from the key chain $ $ $

What happens when you lose your keys or your keys get stolen ? ? ?

ALL things to consider . . .

 

[GB2]

I hope this isn't too far off track but since you are discussing dongles and replacement thereof, even though I know you'll have a field day with this, I seriously was wondering if anyone knew if it is possible for dongles to be affected by viruses or possibly spread viruses between computers if exchanging dongles? I have spnsrvnt.exe taking 50% of my computer resources at all times and I think it may be related to a Gerber/Rainbow Technologies dongle but I'm not sure. Now I've gotten 10 different viruses in that PC this past week and I'd like to move the dongle over to another PC but I'm wondering if I should test out the replacement policy first. $250 is a bargain for salvation since this situation has practically put me out of business for a week, take this into consideration when continuing to discuss the dongle issue....

 

[Replicator]

spnsrvnt.exe is definitely your dongle running in the background, but 50% of your resources sounds pretty high too me !

Another reason DONGLES $UCK !

Not sure about the virus part of your question . . .

 

[Techman]

How 'bout I emulate a dongle for under $100 ?

Just do like 60% of those who are forced to use dongles.. Get an emulator and don't tell any one. Be done with it.

 

[ncpdfsb]

its not piracy if you own the software!
you have the legal rite to make a "backup" of your software.

i have used www.software-key.org very satisfied with my purchase.



p.s. many software dongles are being replaced by active registration numbers, alpha numeric numbers that software users input at time of software installation. pc/mac needs to be connected to the internet/network anytime software is initiated and is in contact with a server for active registration of software being used. very similar to micro$oft windows update process. you may have an option to register your software this way. the new flexi has that ability. kick the dongle to the curb. most pc/mac users have access to the internet/network these days. dongles are sooo 90s.

 

[activitydude]

From a supplier's point of view dongles are both a blessing and a curse.

Yes, we need to protect our investment (the cost of developing the software) and since most "dongles" are really just licenses, not ownership that can be sold or duplicated, we do have to charge something for the license.

Our company decided a couple of years ago to start using Software Licensing instead of hardware keys or dongles. That, along with things like Remote Desktop Connection, allow users to work from home.

The other good thing about SL is, you can't break it, no matter how hard you step on the computer. And, if you have to move the software to another computer, we reissue the license so it's no cost to you. Computers don't last forever. And, also, of course, it cuts way back on losing business by users illegally selling dongles or duplicating them.

We want our customers to stay in business. It's good for them and for us. The customers we have who have gone keyless love it. And it saves us a ton of money we can use to make improvements to Activity.

 

[Replicator]

Hypothetical :

I buy a $40,000 Mercedes and it comes with 1 key that has a computer chip.

I can go make as many keys as I want for that Mercedes, even though they are computer chipped for my car only,

and I may have to pay $150 per key, but I sure as hell don't have to pay $4000 or get stuck not being allowed to have extra keys

for the car that I paid so much money for . . . Isn't it the same damn thing !